it is necessary to balance the failure risk and the maintenance expensive. A methodology for reliability based maintenance optimization of steel bridge welded joints subjected to fatigue is proposed considering linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM), the structure reliability, life cycle cost method and maintenance strategies. The maintenance cost is divided into inspection, repair and failure sections according to the whole life cycle cost methodology. And the maintenance strategy is transformed to the minimum expected lifetime costs with a constraint of the minimum acceptable reliability index. An case concerning to a transverse stiffener of bottom flange welded joint of Qingcaobei bridge is studied with a certain number of simplifications. Some sensitivity analysis is provided. Among all the parameters, discount rate is the most remarkable.